The Greenwood

and in the greenwood, leaves
are playing with the light,
becoming something - the grass
grows rich and wet with clover

people are long gone
from here, but their barrow
and their stone ring
live on -

see them there, silent, stoic
golden with moss, their meaning
lost in a dream of time
as the sun passed

and repassed on their
rugged faces, the silence
of years - here
I eat crisps and the gulls

are loud raucous callings
and skittering feet
on tiles - our small,
young, beech trees flutter

and we wonder how
they will grow, and where
we will be
ten years from now -

another decade encircling
skin and winter bedding
down - soundings
in the deep as moments

grow, add up to - something:
a life: such depth and
transience, light glancing
on surface water - the deep

silted in layers none of us
could bear to dredge.
Here, we are near the sea
and I thought yesterday

as I paddled and my
feet froze, how the
sound of the waves
and their foamy hiss

over the sand
has been heard a million
million years of suns
before our ears.

In such a vast sea
of time, my small tears
broken from a minute heart
dissolve and lose -

there are no words
that can contain the
darkness and the richness
in the greenwood where

leaves are playing with the light
becoming something -
becoming something bright

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